In the early 1970s Sun Ra was enjoying one of the creative and personal peaks of his long career, with the Arkestra relocated to Philadelphia, gigs in Europe and all over the States, a solid repertoire, and, finally, the respect and recognition deserved by an elder statesman of the avant-garde. Unsurprisingly, then, it was also one of Ra’s better documented periods, with numerous performances committed to tape and subsequently released. Even so, this double CD featuring a newly unearthed recording of a 1973 show in New York is indispensable. Not only is the sound quality pristine, but the gig itself perfectly captures all the essential elements of an Arkestra performance at that time. Showcasing a mixture of large-scale improvisation, storming Ra standards, and healthy doses of Cosmo-Nubian philosophical declamation, it’s pretty much the perfect gig. Whether you’re a Ra neophyte looking for a way in, or a diehard devotee, this historical capsule demands to be heard.

Of most interest to the Ra scholar here is the huge, 25-piece Arkestra—one of the biggest ever recorded—highlighting not just Ra’s role as inspirational figurehead, but also his formidable skills as an arranger. So, we find familiar numbers utterly transformed by huge, rumbling gravitas: “Discipline 27”, the archetypal 70s modal swinger, comes on with a big, rousing seriousness; “Space Is the Place”—more or less Ra’s signature tune at this time—enjoys an epic vocal breakdown, with Akh Tal Ebah and June Tyson high in the mix; “Enlightenment” conjures up a giddy cosmic cabaret; “Love in Outer Space” rolls out huge swells of sound; and “Watusa” bursts into a fireball of pure percussion energy.

But the centerpiece of this performance is undoubtedly a 28-minute untitled improvisation that sees Ra extemporizing with the entire palette of the Arkestra, like a painter mixing colors. This massive interlude has it all: a classic Marshall Allen alto sax skronk-out; an agile, soulful tenor solo from John Gilmore; a “camels at the oasis” flute interlude and Aethiopian lope; a crashing, pulse-energy drum solo from Lex Humphries; solid bass investigations from Ronnie Boykins; and plenty of audacious big-band fire music, with Ra controlling this enormous outfit as one organic unit—illustrating perfectly his dismissal of “free jazz: in favor of strict discipline. This band is very clearly bending to the will of one man alone.

Ra further stamps his personality on this parade of musical vignettes with brief snatches of his keyboard preoccupations—so we get an idiosyncratic, impatient piano recital; a Farfisa organ master class, devoted to exploring texture and sound over melody; and one of his legendary science-fiction Moog synthesizer wig-outs, with his unique random-sounding approach leading into astral, upper-register oscillations that show how far ahead of every other Moog player Ra was in terms of experimentation, not content merely to try and emulate an electric guitar, but searching instead for the music of the spheres or the soundtrack to the machinations of his own cerebellum.

Of course, the show ends with the philosophical call-and-response finale—Ra berating the audience for allowing themselves to be tricked into accepting death as the ultimate end of life, and June Tyson echoing his words with hysterical emphasis, while the Arkestra lay down the nonchalantly melancholy vamp of “Discipline 27 II”. At one point, Ra describes himself as “a touch of the myth walking around in your reality”, there and then summing up his entire artistic identity, reminding us to be grateful—even now, 13 years after his return to Saturn—that he ever deigned to walk among us. Finally, the Arkestra drifts off into the outer auditorium, taking the music with them, receding, fading. It’s the perfect ending to the perfect evening in the company of the ever living/never dying Mr Ra.